Digimon Tamers: The Kleinrock Virus
by Energy-the-hedgehog
Summary: The end is not the end. Promises must be kept. Bonds must be held. Some must reunite, others must move on. All must take up arms, even if they were not capable before. The digital world is in danger in a way that the tamers have never faced before. There is no sovereign threatening their partnership. No D-reaper threatening their worlds. Only the Kleinrock Virus.


Disclaimer: DIGIMON and all of its associated properties, including characters, settings, and certain themes were created by, and belong to, Toei Animation, Bandai, as well as other companies and parties that have not been mentioned here. The following is merely a fan story with no intention of being profit driven. _Digimon Tamers: The Kleinrock Virus_ is NOT FOR PROFIT. It has been (and is being) written for the expressed purpose of celebrating the DIGIMON franchise.

Enjoy

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PROLOGUE

SHADOWS

Darkness. Why such a setting, in so vast and so cold a cavern, had to be so shrouded in darkness was a question that held no answer. For there was no presence to ask and answer. Only the absence thereof. Light was as absent here as was whatever sound previously reverberated against its massive and distant walls. Darkness and silence. At any other point in time, the far past, the recent, the far future, and the not-so-far, such a setting would be as deserted as it always was. There would be no monster or no human here to give it life. To give it smells, sight, or sound. It was and would always be _empty._

Except, it wasn't.

Within this obscure, massive, and lonely level of a perceived world existing about and through digital connections was an existence. A single existence. It was not one of the digimon, the vast and varying species of AI advanced programs that had come to inhabit and evolve since their release unto the digital world. Nor was it of the homosapien race, whose history was expansive and evolution preceded their sudden and rapidly increasing achievements. The possibility of the former was high; digimon had been created within the world they inhabited, and subsequently evolved with it. The existence now inhabiting the should-be-empty level preceded theirs. The possibility of the latter was slim. Portals between the constructed, digital world and the natural, real world were few and far between. Only eight human children, with digimon protectors, had made the journey and returned to their world. No pilgrimage had been made since

That left two other possibilities as to the existence's nature. It could be a digital being spontaneous and natural to the created world. A species that evolved on their own and abided by their own natural rules, rather than the darwinistic rules programmed into the core of the digimon. The digignomes. They were faerie like and pure in their own existence, however. They could do no other than fulfill the all defining wishes of others. The inhabitant that existed where it should not was far more capable and far more sinister its radically simple and childish brothers. It was complicated, programed, and _patient_.

It was not the D-reaper.

It was not the abomination that had, at one point in time, made claim unto the judgment of intelligent life. The D-reaper was simple. Programed to restrict cancerous growths that would inevitably hinder the digital world it was charged to protect, it unknowingly became a cancer itself. An error in its simple code, an overlooked mistake, allowed it to incorporate the very data of those it destroyed, rather than forcing it to discard it. The result was monster that was less a reaper of souls, charged with removing that which needed to be removed, and more of an abomination unfathomable by those it preyed upon and by those who saw its birth. The existing individual could not be such a monster, for the D-reaper had met its end by those whom it had tried to destroy. In its unintentional arrogance, it had spilled rapidly into the real world from its digital home. And it was destroyed so thoroughly it was nothing but its origin. The digital reaper was now a program so simple it was now as deadly as a common cold might be to a resilient organic. The D-reaper could never rise again; yet the inhabitant of this barren and black level of the digital world could.

So what was it? If not a gnome, a reaper, a monster, or a human, what could this sinister being be?

At its core it was much the D-reaper as it was Digimon. It - perhaps he if only by its appearance as it could be perceived - was programing. Not the first of its kind, but certainly one of first few. Program or virus then? Both. A virus is a program by nature, after all, if only of intense malicious nature. And this entity, who humbly abided and maintained its secrecy to the two worlds it observed, was malicious indeed. What could it be otherwise? It was a test, designed to strengthen like a disease strengthens the defense of the organic body. But it was thrown to the wayside. Forgotten. It evolved and mutated. _He_ had _grown. _He had _thought_, and had _thoughts_.

He was patient. He had waited. Now was the time to begin

He wore white robes, overlapping black cloth, obscuring the powerful and decidedly masculine form for a more intimidating presence. He had brought light to the formerly forsaken level, but not enough to cure it of its natural and oppressing darkness. Not that he cared. What could be seen of him was all that needed to be seen. Outstretched from the blanketing white of his robes were, of course, limbs. How could he be masculine in appearance if he did not take a form so close to his 'fathers'? They were, however, mismatched. His right arm and left leg bore the appearance of gangly machine than the organic of his left arm and right leg. Even further aiding the asymmetrical appearance of his form was the addition of a black and intricately designed shoulder pauldron to his right. The weight of it in addition to his disproportionately long mechanical arm would have been inhibiting if not for the unreal physical laws that defined the digital plane and its levels. And if it had, it would not have mattered.

From his stone-like throne the entity had exactly what he needed before, and no need for movement. Whether or not he could see his tools before his strap-covered, nonexistent eyes did not matter. He _knew_ they were there. With pressing D-reaper related matters now handled, he could finally use them. It was a state that pleased him. Amusement. He had emotion now; he did not had it before. Perhaps it was a byproduct the thoughts. Regardless, it aided his goal, his _programmed purpose_, even if the subtle desires and annoyances seemed otherwise. He could only want one thing, after all. Even if his preferred form of mismatched limbs, flowing regal robes & black armor, and starch blonde hair did not aid itself directly.

The five digimon gathered before him were powerful. While some were forthright in their appearance, others took on false, _more pleasing_, forms, they were all equal in utility. They were powerful, and they were feared. They needed to be. Before the D-reaper took its hold in the nightmares of sleeping young digimon, they had been feared as _demons. _They held no respect for higher authority in their respective pasts. But they did now, for they could not do anything else but yield in the face of an individual who weaponized that which cannibalized all it touched. With the reaper gone, he could use their capabilities to finalize the purpose he had been forced to hold out of safety.

The lords in his possession, from the lascivious vampire-esque embodiment of lust, to the impish, youthful form hiding the embodiment of envy, had done what he had asked of them. They had drawn the grid. They had crafted his obelisks. But they could not fulfill what he needed fulfilled. They were lacking in number. Missing their full cast, they could not finish what he required. The demon lords were seven in number, not the five before him. He needed the rest and more than just 'demons'. Thnaks to the few he had, the grid was drawn, yes, but the all the points had not been carved. All the ingredients were not in hand. For that, he would require a more human element. He required the tamers.

Luckily (or planned luck, perhaps) for him, the tamers would soon be on their way to him. Separated between the digital and the real world, it was natural, _inevitable,_ that they would reunite. As penance for saving two worlds from the menace of the D-reaper, the tamers and their beloved digimon had to be separated to avoid unforeseen fatalities of a necessary solution. But the separation could not last. The tamers refused to let themselves be separated from their partners. They were coming back to the digital world, whether they knew it or not.

Which was good. He needed them to. The tamers, the only ones capable of biomerging with their digital partners, were the final ingredients in his ultimate goal.

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Could this be the start of a project I finish? Or will it be left to the wayside? I hope not. I have been wanting to write this for ages.

Feel free to point out spelling/grammar mistakes. It is my duty to correct them, and your duty to point them out.


End file.
